Machines such as, for example, wheel loaders, motor graders, track-type tractors, dump trucks, and other types of machinery are used to perform a variety of tasks associated with an industry such as, mining, construction, manufacturing, or transportation. In order to perform these tasks, a machine may include a plurality of systems and each system may have one or more controllers, such as electronic control units (ECUs) or electronic control modules (ECMs). For example, a modern vehicle may have as many as 50 such control units for various subsystems. The ECUs may form a controller network and may be in communication with each other via a data link and various data transmission protocols, such as controller area network (CAN) or FlexRay (that is currently under development).
A particular function performed by the machine may usually involve several ECUs. Accordingly, these several ECUs may communicate with each other to send and receive various types of data. Two common types of data transmitted in the controller network are information-type data and signal-type data. For example, control commands and large data files may be transmitted among various ECUs. Meanwhile, signals may also be transmitted among data monitoring devices (e.g., sensors) and ECUs, as well as among the ECUs. Because of the different characteristics of information data and signal data, communications of these two types of data have different performance requirements. For example, communication of information data emphasizes high portability and scalability, while communication of signal data emphasizes maximum fidelity and continuity. Therefore, there is a need to separate the communication of information and signal data into two stacks to satisfy the respective performance requirements.
An apparatus and method for vehicle data communication is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,040,435 to Watanabe et al. (“the '435 patent”). The apparatus described in the '435 patent includes a plurality of electronic subsystems, each using a different data communication medium and protocol. The apparatus includes a communication protocol converter configured to convert a first communication protocol associated with a first electronic subsystem to a first communication protocol associated with a second electronic subsystem. After the protocol conversion, data transmitted in different communication media can be transmitted among the plurality of electronic subsystems
Although the apparatus described in the '435 patent may be effective for communicating data in a vehicle, it may be problematic. For example, both information and signal data are communicated within each electronic subsystem described in the '435 patent. Although the apparatus disclosed in the '435 patent makes data communication compatible among the several electronic subsystems, the communication of information and signal data within each electronic subsystem still share the same communication protocol. As a result, the vehicle data communication system of the '435 patent may not be capable of achieving high communication performance for both information and signal data. Furthermore, since the data communication system described in the '435 patent uses monolithic design within each electronic subsystem, significant application and communication configuration rewrite will be needed once the physical communication medium is changed.
The disclosed system and method for separating information and signal communications are directed towards overcoming one or more of the shortcomings set forth above.